Banning Small metalized plastic pouches : welcome measure !

I read this mornings news, a small piece stuck in one of the inner pages, that the Indian government is planning to ban all small "gutka" pouches with great satisfaction and a new set of expectation.

Some months ago, I spent time on a couple of postings related to this menace (and it is a big menace in India). The so-called "smart packaging" and "bite-sized" dosage revolution that is being discussed by the marketing folks so eloquently is growing to be a MAJOR ecological issue.

Any walk in the hinterland (not just the cities) will show tons of small "paan" and "gutka" packages lying all around. These are too small to be collected and deposited / segregated. They are collectively big enough to form a major portion of animal feed if we do not take care.

A few years ago, we'd have people commenting on the quantum of cigarette packs, gum wrappers etc. Today, all that is completely overshadowed by these "smart" packs.

It is time we shunned this "smart" pack .....

What should governments be involved in other than governance ?

For this post - am not writing a new set. This is a cross post from Sikshana.blogspot.com

There is growing concern about PPP model in the secondary education (proposed).
Please see this posting :

http://sikshana.blogspot.com/2009/10/ppp-in-secondary-education_11.html#links

My comments on the post being
_____________________________________________________________
Dear ESR,
Long ago (while I was still fresh out of Ayn Rand readings), I was asked what should the government be responsible for. This was for a debate. I still remember that after much thought I had come down to the crux of governance and social equality that would be covered by
a. Defense
b. Law & Order
c. Healthcare
d. Education till 10th

Over time, having seen the power of government sanctions (where LAND and Industry allocations / grants are made) and having read the farce of boards eg. WAKF etc, I've come to add another item to this list and that is "livelihood". My guess is that the NREGS is possibly a close example.

Why the background - IMHO the government has NO business running the road business ?

Your concern on secondary education is very valid and is something that we need to discourage actively !

We, as a nation, are only growing to address the growing rural-urban divide by taking schools / hospitals and livelihood to the rural areas and NOT by allocating "x" % of seats in urban schools to the BPL section ?

Let us see how we can bring this under the bigger "urban-rural" divide discussion as that may have better traction / purchase ?

Time off on Gandhi Jayanthi : Is it the right thing to do ?

I'm sure people all around have been exposed to this "timely" debate. I saw a twitter like snippet off Shashi Tharoor and a longer debate over the news hour.

I'm surprised at the level of hypocrisy in the debate .vs. actual demonstration of thought.


I heard Tushar Gandhi ask for social work to be given time off while picnic/ timeoff be marked as absent. I'd like to ask him a question :What would his inaugural attendance of the Mont Blanc pen "Gandhi special" be termed as ? Would that qualify as social work ?

For the un-initiated : there are 2 "luxury" brands who've released Mahatma Gandhi specials - one is LLADRO with their figurine. See picture below


and the other is the Pen from Mont Blanc - see picture below (Mr Tushar Gandhi releasing it)



Again for those who've not been watching the news. The Lladro figurine costs USD 700 while the limited edition pen costs USD 25000 ! (yes, that is right, there are 3 zeros at the end and it is in USD)

What a change from the edict of simple living and high thinking ?

Atleast, people like us (the Aam Janatha) do not preach on simple living as we do enjoy the occasional high living. I wish I could state the same for the thinking side too ;-) when I generalize ?

I: Post partition blues - Are we going to re-write history ?

First, I guess, my prediction on the new "hot" topic went down - damp squib....
It seems to have been overtaken by the BJP issue of the version on national identity, which made me think - what is the identity that we are talking about ?

Historically, I'm told that Md Ali Jinnah took the name "Pakistan" only because he thought Pt Nehru would choose "Bharat" as the name and not "India" ?

India - the name itself (I'm told) comes from variously, Sindhu (river) / Hindu (and therefore Indus). Interestingly, "India" finds no mention in any of Indian script / history and it has always been "Bharata varsha". The Indus meanwhile is out in current Pakistan. So much so, the Aryan heritage post the Mohenjadaro / Harappan settlements are also in current Pakistan ?

Time to think back to the only Emperor who was truly Indian - Ashoka or should I say "Devanampiya" ?

I'm sure that there are tons of "Dravidian" thinkers who'd state that even Ashoka has a "Aryan" heritage that could be foreign ? But, we need to stop at some point and stop re-inventing the history.

IMHO - Ashoka's "DHAMMA" is probably the closest we have to a truly secular, value based community and adoption should get closest to the proverbial "Rama Rajya" ?

The newsweek article : USA :Everyone is a Hindu now

I'm sure this one article is going to create a buzz - atleast in India !
The only reason it probably has not already created a buzz is that no-one in India today has time for anything in the papers except for H1N1 :-)


http://www.newsweek.com/id/212155 is something I'd like you to click on. This actually captures the spirit of Indian hinduism - very benign, follow what you may attitude to religion

I remember talking to people in the midwest of US (YES - in LDS land)
One of them commented about my whiteshirt stating that it reminds them of their preachers. I replied stating that in a way we have a lot more in common !.

Hindus have always believed in re-birth, in the concept that god speaks through humans, in the concept that every living / non-living thing in the world is a manifestation of god and also to NOT believe in all of the above is ALSO a hindu belief !

Let us see how the article gets accepted by the world - that will be a true reflection of the belief ?

Is a long life essential for developing an intelligent being ?

I was reading some material on sea creatures during the weekend and one of the things that struck me was that apparently Octopus is considered a very "intelligent" animal.
This, I found easy to relate to given the size of it's head / brain as a % of body mass. What surprised me was that for me- this was news.

I had heard how the "other" animals in the list eg. Dolphin, Whales etc were smart, but, for some reason Octopii were not in the same classification ? These were generally clumped under the squids etc and seen as best on french cuisine / calamari !

That got me thinking.....

Given that the normal life-span of an Octopus is only 3 years (yes, it is true), maybe, they never get enough time to make it to the intelligent list ? After all, human kids of that age have still had not "learnt" a lot of things ?

So, maybe, if we extended the life-span of a Octopus, we could teach it to sing & dance ?
Hmmm.....

Is "affordable housing" the new fad or the genuine article ?

Last week I was in UAE and contrasting their residential building market (esp. Dubai) now and a few months / quarters ago. Today, as against a building frenzy a year ago, the market seems downright down in the dumps. The talk of the town however, continues to be how "upscale" properties are now available at 60% of the earlier rate rather than how "affordable" housing has been !

Seeing the numerous ads in the local newspapers made me wonder if there is commercial merit ?

Let us face it, in terms of building affordable housing, the key cost factors of land, material and labour have NOT changed significantly except for land. Given that most of these builders probably have a land bank already and are not making "cash" payments today, what really has changed ?

Is it just that they are going to be using "cheaper" materials and giving up on higher margins ?

Dont' you think that there is some "herd" mentality going on esp. given that default and cost of money has probably gone up ?

If the builders were really looking at "affordable" housing, then, IMHO there should be a grounds up review of the market. Today, the housing market is mixed with 1/2 and 3 bedroom apartments that do not actually leverage the target model.

In my view, if a builder actually did a grounds up building to cater to "similar" target market and then worked on efficiency, there would be better throughput. As an example, I'm sure there is a market for bachelor "pads" with ample two-wheeler parking PLUS utility for single occupants. These utilities would range from food outlets to possible a video rental to a dhobi/laundry.

The ground floor would then generate enough "maintenance" funds and let the occupants in the higher floors (all single occupancy) to work out an efficient cost model ? Dont' you think ?

I'm sure we can think of similar setup for various target users ?